


A Minor Cat-astrophe

by WDW



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Gen, Ghost Swap 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 08:19:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17383022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WDW/pseuds/WDW
Summary: Written for Ghost Swap 2019.Prompt:  "sissel and jowd accidentally leave sissel's body in a taxi or something, the absolute shared look of horror between jowd and some household item as they realize they have to run around the city to get him back before anyone notices the Dead Cat, or the lack of cat in the house"





	A Minor Cat-astrophe

**Author's Note:**

> For kamil-a!
> 
> I feel a bit odd about posting this, since it's my first fic in the fandom and first time writing these characters, even though it's been many years since I played the game myself, so sorry for OOC-ness. I'm glad to finally contribute something to this fandom, after loving this game for so long (five years, whoo!)

_In hindsight_ , Jowd decides after everything is finally sorted out, _it really could have gone much worse._

Then again, that had been a constant mantra of his for the past decade or so of his life. Ever since _this_ life had started, with the breathless burn of hope that had overshadowed everything else, even the crack of a gunshot and the red-hot sear of pain in his leg,

They had won their desperate struggle against fate, and despite all odds, they had gotten a second chance. _All_ of them.

It was just, he really hadn't expected that second chance to involve running frantically through the city's streets at some terrible hour in the morning, trying to find a taxi cab before its driver noticed a dead body in the backseat.

A cat's dead body, to be specific.

He wasn't entirely sure if that made the whole situation better or worse.

His world takes on a faint red tinge. _Shouldn't there be an easier way of doing this?_ Says the bicycle seat gripped loosely in his hand.

"If there was one," Jowd mutters under his breath, "then I really wish I knew about it two hours ago."

The woman waiting next to him at the intersection glances at him. Jowd is suddenly very uncomfortably aware of the fact that he had just spoken out loud to a bicycle seat.

 _Maybe_ , Sissel suggests, _if we call Yomiel_ -

Jowd blanches.

The past decade had treated Yomiel - not kindly, because Jowd isn't quite sure that being crushed by a large rock and subsequently going to jail for ten years could be considered _kind_ under any circumstances. But, he knew with the certainty of having lived that particular possibility... better than it could have. Much, _much_ better.

The man had been transformed by hope and his rewritten destiny into someone almost entirely unrecognizable from the vengeful, murderous spirit that had turned Jowd's life into a waking nightmare in a much darker world.

The key word here, however, was _almost_.

Jowd briefly imagines calling Yomiel, and the ensuing conversation. Specifically, he mentally played out the scenario of informing the man that he had forgotten the immortal, indestructible, irreplaceable physical vessel through which (and _only_ through which) Yomiel's best friend can interact with the world... in the backseat of a taxi cab.

Yomiel had been confined to a wheelchair for much of the past ten years, but Jowd knew much better than most that the man didn't need physical mobility to be entirely terrifying.

 _If it helps_ , Sissel offers unhelpfully, _I forgot too._

 

* * *

 

How they end up in this mess involves a car chase, several cartons of smashed eggs, and an almost murder that would have been - without the intervention of a certain time-traveling cat ghost - just a regular murder.

It's a long story that's more than moderately entertaining, but Jowd has a haunting suspicion that it wouldn't stand up in a court of law. Especially when the prosecutors in this case would be 1) Sissel's murderous best friend who might just destroy his life and 2) Jowd's devastated daughter who also might just destroy his life, just with sad looks and tearful silence instead of literal homicide.

The core of it is, Jowd had taken Sissel along with him on a case, the kitten's small body tucked in his pocket. He had started doing the habit a year after Temsik Park, because Sissel didn't get much of a chance to explore otherwise, and as it turned out, solving crimes was much easier with someone who could rewind time to see events as they happened.

The sequence of events had become muscle memory at this point: bring Sissel along, usually in his coat pocket or in some sort of carrier; let him out to do his work discreetly at the scene of the crime; return back home before Kamila or anyone else noticed the distinct lack of kitten in their home.

Except this time around, with death averted and night's work completed, it suddenly became very apparent to Sissel and Jowd both that Sissel's body was nowhere in sight.

 _Are you sure it's not still in your pocket?_ The abandoned microwave beeps worriedly, its light flickering on and off with a certain nervous energy. _I can't see my core in the Ghost World, but maybe -_

As large and potentially laws-of-physics destroying Jowd's pockets were, he's decently certain he would notice having a dead cat in one of them.

"I don't understand," he mutters out loud to himself, "the only two places we've been tonight have been here and home. I suppose there was the taxi ride over here, but -"

Jowd goes quiet. "Oh," he says.

 _Oh?_   Sissel repeats curiously.

Then, after a moment of realization, _Oh._

The detective and the household appliance share a long look of absolute horror.

 

* * *

 

Jowd had not realized just how many taxi cabs operated in this city. He always saw them out of the corner of his eye, but it was more or less easy to assume that they were the same ones. They were, after all, almost entirely identical.

That last fact was turning out to be a nightmare.

"I'm looking for a taxi," Jowd says into the phone. "A specific one. I had taken it earlier tonight, and I - ah, left something valuable in it."

"Sir," replies the voice on the other end, sounding entirely bored out of their mind, "all lost items are aggregated by the end of the night into our lost and found. Come into our office in the _morning_ and you can see if your possession had been located."

"This is time-sensitive," he tries. "It's - a police matter."

"Do you remember the license plate?" Asked the voice on the other end, sounding completely unperturbed.

"Er." No, no he didn't. "I... do remember that the car had a difficult door?"

"...Sir, you'll need to wait until the morning."

Jowd opens his mouth, then closes it again. "I need to find before the driver does," he says reluctantly, uncertain of exactly how much he wants to say. "They might dispose of it if they find it first."

There's a long silence on the other line. "...Is this some sex thing?"

Jowd goes pale, entirely horrified at the possibility. "No! No, it's - it's a dead cat."

The line goes dead.

He stares at the phone in his hand.

"That could have gone better," Jowd mutters under his breath.

 _What's a 'sex thing'?_ Sissel asks curiously.

 

* * *

 

Kamila calls. Of course she does.

"Dad," she says bravely, only the slightest of a waver giving away her fear, "Sissel's missing. I've been looking for him all over, but I don't think he's in the house."

"I - I know, sweetheart," Jowd says slowly, after a long moment of consideration. "Don't worry. He'll be back home in a few hours."

His daughter seems surprised. "You - you know where he is?"

Ah. "Er, well." His brain freezes up on him. "I... decided to take him out for a walk."

Kamila is quiet for a long moment. "Dad, it's midnight."

"...Yes."

"And Sissel's a cat."

He laughs awkwardly. "Well, you know how he can be sometimes, sweetie."

"Okay, Dad," she says, sounding very unconvinced. "When will you and Sissel be back home?"

Jowd glances at his watch, and winces.

"You really should go back to bed, sweetheart," he tries. "We'll be back home in the morning, alright? Don't worry yourself by staying up for us."

"Okay, Dad."

The line goes dead.

Jowd lets out a deep, deep breath.

 

* * *

 

Thirty minutes and no real progress later, Jowd's phone rings. It's an unknown number, and he eyes it with no small amount of alarm. He hesitates before pressing the glaring green call button.

"Hello?" He says hesitantly.

"So," says Yomiel. "I heard you've lost Sissel."

Jowd freezes. There's about several dozen questions swirling around in his head right now, and he isn't entirely sure where to start.

" _Yomiel?_ "

"Yep. It's been a while, officer."

 _"_ How did you -"

"You gave your number to me ten years ago," the man says calmly. "Told me to use it, if I ever needed to."

A perfectly reasonable answer, if not for the fact that it cleared up approximately none of the confusion swirling around in Jowd's mind.

"...Also, Kamila called me for help."

Jowd clings onto the first thing that jumps to mind. "Kamila... knows how to contact you?"

"We've been pen pals for years," Yomiel says, sounding almost bored. "She tells me how Sissel is doing, I teach her how to redesign her blog theme and hack into federal data systems. Your wife introduced us. Keep up."

It hits Jowd suddenly just how entirely out of the loop he is.

"You," he says slowly, "have been teaching my daughter how to do _what?_ "

"That's not important right now," the other man says dismissively. "What's that about Sissel going missing?"

Jowd takes a breath, lets it back out again. "He isn't missing," he says carefully. "He's in my phone right now."

"Huh." He doesn't think he's imagining the disbelief in the other man's voice.

_Hello Yomiel._

For a long moment, Yomiel doesn't speak.

Then, slowly, with a strange softness, "Hello, Sissel. I'm guessing you've lost your body?"

The engineer's voice had changed upon hearing Sissel's ghostly whisper of a voice through the line, quiet enough that it could be dismissed as imagination by anyone not attuned. Maybe Yomiel shouldn't have been able to, not by the rules that governed the separation of life and death in their reality.

But Yomiel and Sissel had always been able to hear each other when no one else could.

 _In the backseat of a taxi cab_ , Sissel agrees.

"In the ba - _Jowd_." There's a sudden dangerous quality to the man's voice.

Jowd winces. "There was a murder case -"

"Don't. Don't speak."

Yomiel sighs. "...What do you need from me?"

**Author's Note:**

> And then Yomiel tracks the taxi down in thirty seconds flat and gets Sissel's body back because he's a computer programmer and programmers are just Like That :D
> 
> (Sorry for the abrupt ending, pretend that Yomiel and Jowd then have an awkward kind of "we are both cat dads" conversation)


End file.
